"anachronism" and the OED

[Dan Goncharoff]

I am confused.

Isn't the fact that this is sense 2 of anachronism demonstrate that it
doesn't restrict use of the term to practical anachronism?

What is sense 1? I don't have the OED available to me at the moment.

DanG


On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "anachronism" and the OED
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I agree completely.
>
> When I was in seventh grade, in the Mesolithic, we were told that the
> striking clock in _Julius Caesar_ was an "anachronism."  It may even have
> been in a printed footnote in our textbook.
>
> I remember because, needless to say, I'd never heard the word "anachronism"
> before. For a while I confused it  with "anarchism," which I believe I
> first
> read on the back of a bubblegum card, in connection with the assassination
> of Pres. McKinley by Leon Czolgosz in 1901.
>
> Predictable whine: They don't make bubblegum cards like they used to.
>
> JL
>
> On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 10:09 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      "anachronism" and the OED
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Sense 2 of "anachronism" is
> >
> > "2. Anything done or existing out of date; hence, anything which was
> > proper to a former age, but is, or, if it existed, would be, out of
> > harmony with the present; also called a practical anachronism. Also
> > transf. of persons."
> >
> > The first clause is general, but the second ("hence ...") seems to
> > restrict anachronisms to things *correct* of a former age but not for
> > the present.  Should this sense not also include the notion of
> > something *incorrect* of a former age, because it is not consistent
> > with that former age?  (Sometimes -- but not always! -- occurring
> > because the thing is true of the present age but has wrongly been
> > applied to the past.)
> >
> > For example, a film of "Lady Audley's Secret" (1860s) has one
> > character referring to another as a "golddigger".  That's a word in
> > harmony (considerably, but politics aside) with the present, but not
> > in use in the 1860s.  Is that not an anachronism?
> >
> > In fact, one quotation in the OED seems to have the sense I find not
> > included:
> > 1864    Round Table 18 June 4/3   She gives them phrases and words
> > which..had their beginning long since that period, and are in fact
> > linguistic anachronisms.
> >
> > Joel
> >
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